Buccaneers' Payne Durham: Limited to blocking duties in '25

Durham brought in one of four targets for 11 yards across 17 games during the 2025 season.

Fellow tight end Ko Kieft's season-ending leg injury, which he suffered in Week 3, led to Durham being utilized almost exclusively as a blocker throughout the 2025 season. Durham was coming off a 2024 regular season where he'd posted a career-best 11-115-2 line on 14 targets across 16 games, but those numbers were almost exclusively the byproduct of No. 1 tight end Cade Otton sitting out the last three games of the campaign due to a knee injury. Durham will be playing out the final year of his rookie contract in 2026 and appears ticketed for a similar minimal pass-catching role.